Leeper: We felt that women needed their option, their choice. She can put it in before she goes to the movies. She can go dancing, and be whisked away into a wonderful romance, and she has uninterrupted, beautiful, pleasured sex. It’s absolutely safe, and it’s convenient.
Laura: that’s Mary Ann Leeper, talking about spontaneous sex, that’s also…safe. That’s right—hot sex anywhere, anytime. No last-minute fumbling for a Trojan. No awkward conversations. No worries.
What’s new in contraception and disease prevention that makes this possible? Actually, it’s been available for 20 years, and it’s called the female condom. A lot of women in other countries use it, not so many here. But a new version of the female condom, called FC2, is about to be released. And if Leeper has her way, those U.S. numbers are going to change.
Leeper: There’s what, 10 billion male condoms distributed every year? If we could get 3 or 4% of that for female condoms, that female condoms would be available like that in the next two years, that would be terrific.
Laura: Why bother, you ask? Well…
Leeper: It’s the whole issue of empowering women to be able to take care of themselves. And that’s where my passion is.
Laura: Leeper is Senior Strategic Advisor to the Female Health Company, the firm that developed the female condom. A petite woman, with closely cropped white hair, she’s in our studio today dressed in black and white and wearing pearls.
Just this summer, Fortune Magazine rated her business eighth among the top 100 fastest-growing, publicly traded companies in America. It’s taken a long time to get there, against great odds.
The story begins with a trip to Copenhagen...
Leeper: Yes. [laughs] Well, there was an experience! We had learned that Dr. Lasse Hessel had a prototype female condom and he lived in Copenhagen. So I went to see him. And he lived in this very old, decrepit farmhouse. And sitting outside of the farmhouse is this gorgeous silver Rolls Royce. And a big, tall, skinny guy opens up the door, with a real long cigar in his mouth, and he says he was Lasse Hessel, and come on in. And he plops this cigar box on the table right in front of me and he said, “There you go!”
And so I lift up the lid, and this puff of cigar smoke came pushing out into my face, and I started coughing and I thought, “Oh my goodness, what is this?” And I looked down inside this cigar box and it was filled with bits of metal and all kinds of hard plastic, soft plastic, rings, sheaths. And he said, “There it is!” And, long story short, I picked up that cigar box and spent six and a half years back in the United States making it into a product.
Laura: The female condom may be an incredibly worthwhile product, but why isn’t it more popular here? 45 million were distributed last year in Africa. In the U.S., the figure is a tiny fraction of that.
Some New York City clinics, where free condoms are available, have seen an increase in usage – one center, in Bedford Stuyvesant, reports 100 female condoms picked up for every 250 male condoms. However, health professionals say that the majority of women, if they ask for condoms, ask for the male condom.
Let’s listen to what some women have to say about it.
Casey: At least me and my friends, we don’t know a lot about it and so we don’t really know how to use it, we don’t know like, how effective it is, how it feels.
Jess: I honestly don’t know much about it. Like, I’ve heard of it, and that it exists. But exactly how to use it or anything like that, I’m clueless.
Michelle: I actually think I got it put on my pillow as a joke.
Jess: I think it’s awkward.
Danika: I saw a picture of it, I think
Neoshe: I just know that it’s inserted in you, and that’s about it. I actually don’t even know what it looks like.
Zenya: Of course you have to insert it yourself. And to me, I guess— just having to put your fingers up in that area is not the best.
Jess: I think the male condom- that’s how we started off. I think we should just keep it like that.
Laura: Now, I’ve talked to a number of young women about the female condom and most of them have never seen it. They don’t quite know what it is, they joke about it, they’re a little uncomfortable.
Leeper: Some interviews suggest that women have an aversion to the female condom. That’s something we’ve been working on for years. Some of the magazines made a lot of fun of it years ago, and we’ve never gotten over the jokes that were made about it when it was first introduced. I don’t know. Perhaps it’s weird. I think when I lifted up that cigar box and saw it the first time myself, I went, “Ahhh, what is this?” And I think that “Ahhhh! What is this?” is a natural response for the first time when you haven’t seen it before. Now, twenty years later, it is in the textbooks, it’s on Wikipedia, it’s in the Encyclopedia, it’s in Our Body, Ourselves. It’s much more visible.
Laura: What sort of people are using it now in the U.S. and how do you hope that will change?
Leeper: The women who are using it in the U.S. are young women who are concerned about sexually transmitted infections. If you think about it, one in three-and-a half sexually active young women between 18 and 25 have some kind of sexually transmitted disease. One in three-and-a-half. That’s a lot!
But the thing about the female condom is that you can’t just have it sitting there. There needs to be an education piece that goes along with it. What does it look like? How do I insert it? What does it feel like? Questions and answers have to be made available, at least in the beginning, until it’s really fully integrated into the system.
Laura: Now, I’m not sure where in your progression this happened, this happened, but I know that at some point you were ready to give up.
Leeper: Oh, many times I was about to give up. And every time I was ready to throw in the towel, something would happen that would spur me on. One time, it was Easter Sunday, and I was just frustrated. We had no money, didn’t know what we were going to do. And I thought, why are we doing this? Why am i sitting here doing this? And the telephone rang and a young woman was on the phone, she said, “I have to speak to Dr. Leeper.” I said, “Well, you have her. But do you know that this is Easter Sunday?” And she said, “Yeah, I know, and I am so sorry that I called you today.” She said, “But he’s not here.” I said, “what do you mean?” She said, “Well, if he knew I was talking to you he would beat me up.” She said, “My name is Anna, and he’s HIV positive, and I called to thank you.” Well, I mean, I still cry today when I think about that phone call. And I hung up the phone and went back to work. And every time I was ready to give up, something like that happened that spurred me on to keep doing what I was doing.
Laura: It can be hard for any woman to bring up the issue of a male condom. Or insist that her partner wear one when he doesn’t want to. If that’s you, maybe the female condom is your answer – and you can find it in the clinic or in the pharmacy, and you don’t need a prescription. The best thing is, you can put it in up to eight hours before having sex.
There are numerous ways to prevent pregnancy, but there’s only one way to prevent disease: a condom. So if you’re not absolutely certain your partner is wearing one, get over the yuck-factor. Get your own and use it.
For more information on the female condom, visit femalehealth.com.
I’m Laura Sessions Stepp, and this is “Sex. Really,” two weeks from now, we’ll take this topic a little bit further and ask the question who is responsible for preventing pregnancy and disease?
What Do You Think?